SWTOR again?

I haven't played any SWTOR in... almost exactly a year, I'd guess. At least that's the last time I made a post about it, January 2023. That's probably about when my subscription lapsed and I let it, stepping aside to do other things for a while. I'm giving some thought to picking up another two months bundle, and maybe another two months after that if I'm still going strong, and playing through some more of my older characters that are still a long way away from finishing their stories. I doubt I'll worry about recording them anymore; I'm kind of over the hassle of trying to do that project. But I would like to actually play them, I think. I opened the launcher and updated the game.

To be honest with you, I've very little to even no interest in the new content that's dropping still, at an unsteady slow drip. I mostly just want to play the class stories again with the characters that I've already started. I have little interest at this point in things like seasons, reputation tracks, collecting this or that, or—like I said, the post-endgame content. I don't even know if I care about Ilum; once you finish the class stories on Corellia with all of my new characters, I might as well delete them and start over with some new ones. If I really want to play that much.

I dunno. I'm giving this some thought. There's a bundle right now that's offering a 60-day subscription, 2400 cartel coins and an exclusive mount for $39.99, which isn't a great deal, but it's not bad either. 

This isn't one of my characters, but I found this screenshot from older material, and it's a cool bit of SWTOR concept.

We'll see if this notion actually advances to an actual resubscription and some playing or not, though. Meanwhile, let's review the characters I have, shall we?

Retired characters that I still keep because they do crafting:

Graggory - Human male advanced prototype powertech

Maark - Human male focus Jedi Guardian

Mat Thew - Human male fury Sith Marauder

Luukke - Human male sharpshooter gunslinger

Johhn - Human male marksman sniper

Phillippion - Human male gunnery commando

Galation - Human male pyrotech powertech

Deleted character that I played all the way through:

Actsion - Human male deception assassin

Newer characters that are advancing quickly because I wasn't recording them:

Hutran Thanatos - Mirialan male lethality operative

Taul Kajak - Mirialan male combat Jedi sentinel

Embric Stane - Cyborg male arsenal mercenary

Mirabeu Tane - Cyborg male gunslinger trooper

Newer characters that I either was recording or was planning to, so are still much fresher:

Phovos Maledict - Human male juggernaut sith warrior

Codon Veile - Chiss male sniper trooper

Wulf Hengest - Human male vanguard bounty hunter

Haul Romund - Human male mercenary smuggler

Vash Galaide - Human male powertech agent

Vant Galaide - Human male mercenary bounty hunter

Anstal Tane - Sith male scoundrel smuggler

Revecca Arden - Human female sorceress iniquisitor

Elemer Kell - Imperial zabrak male Jedi sentinel knight

Gändalf Greyhame - Human male sorcerer consular

Beorn Hengest - Republic zabrak male sniper bounty hunter

Gael Heckett - Cyborg male powertech smuggler

Saxon Hettar - Sith male gunslinger agent

I actually do have seventeen characters that haven't finished their story or maxed out their level. The latter will happen before the former, but either way, I've got a lot of material to play that I've already kicked off. Of course, by then I can start deleting characters that I'm done with and starting over with new ones, if I still want to. I suspect, however, that by the time I finish these seventeen characters, if not long before that happens, I'll be ready to take a break from the game again. 

UPDATE: Well, I went for it. Spent the $40, reactivated my subscription, checked out a bit of new stuff, reacquainted myself with the controls, and messed around with two of the newer characters that I'd already long since stopped recording, both my Mirialans, by funny coincidence; Taul Kajak the Jedi who's on Alderaan, and Hutran Thanatos, the  agent who just did some small between planet missions. I'm not sure that I remember which planet I'm going to go do next when I finally actually get back to going and doing another planet. I know for sure that I finished Hoth with him, but I'm pretty sure that I haven't done Voss, so I think that I'm in between there somewhere. In any case, he's already level 80, so I doubt I'll be doing the planetary missions, just the class story missions with him. There's no point in farming for XP that I don't need, and the planetary missions aren't always as fun as I wish that they'd be. They end up being a bit tedious more often than not. 

I do want to go take some screenshots or video of him running around doing his thing though, while I still have him to run around and do his thing. Although I stopped recording him long ago, and there won't be many reasons to keep him after I finish his class story. There's a max of 24 characters per server, and because all of the legacy unlocks and stuff is per server, I don't want to spill into another server. That means that I'll need to free some of these guys up in order to create new ones. As I finish the stories with my newer crop of characters, I think I'll take some screenshots and delete them, or maybe figure out how to make them inactive, or something.

While I've got 1) an active subscription, and 2) my oldest son living with me, who also happens to be a big KOTOR fan, I'm thinking of letting him play through some characters on my account too. I could even spare some extra credits and other goodies for him to make it easier, plus, if he does it on my account, he automatically gets access to my collections, and other things that I've unlocked through legacy, like extra starting companions, and stuff like that.

UPDATE 2: If I let my son play a character, or if I do another one after this giant batch of characters that I already have (and I am pretty sure that I can turn them inactive rather than having to delete them) then I'm not sure how to proceed. Having 1337 gear (how's that for old school?) is not at all important to me because I almost exclusively play solo story stuff. Having gear for cosmetics is pretty easy now that weapons are in Outfitter, so it doesn't actually matter what your armor and weapons are; you see the ones that you pick in Outfitter regardless. In the past, I've enjoyed crafting stuff and letting the character use the crafted gear. At least for weapons, although I've done that less for armor. I don't really need to do this because, although it's slower, drops from enemies will tend to keep you more or less up-to-date and good enough for story play. If you use all crafted stuff, you can stay a little ahead of that curve on average, although occasionally something will drop in one gear slot that's a little better than your current crafted item.

But it's a little bit of a pain. I think the best way to play it is to craft some low level stuff that you give your character right away, but then don't worry about keeping them in crafted gear; let them replace it as they get better drops just through play.

Of course, it's not just gear and cosmetics. Some of the legacy perks require an outlay of credits for each character, like some of the quick travel to the fleet, to your ship, the XP boosts, etc. In my opinion, these are all worth doing, but I'm not yet clear what the new economy looks like. I have over 800 million credits in the legacy bank, but I can't count on making that back if I go crazy spending it, because they've done some things to address inflation, and the cost of stuff I used to sell is greatly reduced from what it once was. I'm feeling like I should be economical and careful with my money now, and not drop hundreds of millions of credits on a cartel market cosmetic clothing set on the GTN just because.

In the past, I've forwarded about five million to new characters as they start the game. This will give them plenty to unlock the legacy perks and some outfitter slots, as well as have plenty of money to just play through without ever worrying about money. I do think, however, that for my son, this may be a bit much. I'm not even sure that he wants to play. I think he kind of does, but the keyboard and mouse (vs the old Xbox controller, like he played it in the past) isn't his thing. He's really a console guy. I'm told that you can set up SWTOR to be mostly playable with a controller, but I've never tried, and I do the regular keyboard/mouse combo.

UPDATE 3: Actually, there isn't any way to deactivate a character, it looks like, except letting your subscription expire. Once you resubscribe, it automatically reactivates your characters, unless you somehow have more than your limit. You can, however, buy new character slots. Maybe they're not too expensive on the GTN, or I can buy them with my monthly allotment of cartel coins. Although not now; I'm fresh out. Bought (and unlocked) the covert (i.e., invisible) armor set, something I've always wanted so that I don't have to obligatorily have gloves and bracers, for example, or even a shirt) as well as a bundle of Mandalorian style helmets.

UPDATE  4: Part of what motivated me to play again was watching a youtube playthrough of the new Girlboss Chains story, or whatever exactly its called. That's exactly why I greatly prefer the original stories. Most of the more recent story updates consist of the writer's favorite girlboss NPC of the month starring in the show, and the actual player character being reduced to supporting cast. The expansion stuff simply isn't very compelling. Which is sad, because it could be. But dedication to The Message™ and general incompetence gets in the way, and the new stuff is just... some of it has potential, but none of it is very engaging. None of it since the final final conclusion to the Vitiate/Valkorian stuff has been very interesting. This whole Mandalorian girlboss catfight storyline just is boring, and whatever's going on with Darth Malgus is too obtuse to catch my interest. And none of the new characters are very intriguing at all.

On another note, I find my list of characters cumbersome. I have so many in part because I wanted to try different combat styles, and the more nuanced differences between combat styles—for example how Graggory is an Advanced Prototype Powertech and Galation is a Pyrotech Powertech. I'm thinking of creating more of a matrix type chart that shows what each character does and why I have him; combat style, crafting or what have you, that makes him important to keep.